Il buono, Il brutto, Il cattivo
by Itdoesringabell
Summary: She has two weeks to kill, and she has to start somehow. Season 3 AU - Dan/Blair/Nate.


_I read a post on Tumblr that inspired me to write that fic. This is my first OT3 fic, featuring Dan/Blair/Nate._

_It's set somewhere in S3 where Serenate and Danessa and Chair don't exist._

_Hope you enjoy it._

* * *

_Monday._

If it had to start with someone, it only seems fair it's Humphrey. All the bad habits in the world must be coming from Brooklyn.

Blair found herself with nothing to do at the start of Spring Break. Serena was somewhere in Mexico getting drunk, Nate was somewhere in the world doing the same with Chuck, and Blair was alone.

It didn't seem so terrible at first. She would catch up on some reading, perhaps do some yoga, and supervise Dorota reorganizing her closet. She would keep busy using that time for herself.

Time for herself gets boring after the first weekend. So boring that she does something she would have never done under other circumstances, but desperate times call for desperate measures. She has two weeks to kill, and she has to start somehow.

Humphrey sounds very suspicious when he answers her call.

"Are you going to go see _Lolita _for Mr. Harrison's class?" she asks, casual.

"Mmh no" his voice is still uncertain "I've seen it twice already"

"Of course, you have" Blair hangs up, more annoyed that she lets him hear.

He calls back three minutes later.

"I can come see it with you, if you want"

"And why would I want that?"

She pictures his shrug "Everyone is out of the city. And they probably wouldn't be up for it anyway"

"I don't need your pity, Humphrey"

She hangs up again.

Blair sits quietly in the showing room that afternoon, Godiva box open on her lap. She feels someone slide in the seat next to her.

"I told you not to come, Humphrey"

He glances at the chocolates, small scrunch of his nose, before staring at the screen.

"Actually, you didn't. And had you, this is a free country"

She doesn't reply anything, because the movie starts. After, Humphrey takes a cab back to Brooklyn, and Blair walks home –he didn't even offer to walk her. She steps into her foyer staring at a picture of herself and Humphrey leaving the theater on Gossip Girl.

Late at night, there is another blast about Nate being back in New York.

_Tuesday._

At the loft, Dan sinks in the couch, numb.

"Why are you back, again?" he asks Nate sitting in the armchair, only extending his arm to pass him the joint.

Nate takes it, and lifts his eyebrows like he is trying to remember the answer, and not think of it.

"I don't know, man. Chuck was being…Chuck I guess"

"Mmh"

It's the only answer Dan gives. Radiohead fills the room again, like each time they fall silent. Dan is super high, like he hasn't been in a while, so he is starting to fall asleep in the middle of the afternoon.

"Hey, what's this about you and Blair going to the movies together?"

Nate's voice resonates like an echo.

"What?" Dan asks, ready to forget the question once more.

"You. Blair. The movies"

It takes a few seconds to Dan to put the pieces back together.

"Ha. It was for school"

"You share a class?" Nate asks, smiling.

Dan wonders what is so funny about the idea, because being in Blair's philosophy class is about the worst thing that's happened to him that semester.

"Yeah. Philosophy"

"Mmh" Nate answers, matching Dan's humming "Didn't end in mutual destruction"

Dan shrugs, uninterested "I don't know, she's not that bad. We did a couple of shots together at Dorota's wedding"

"Yeah, I saw that too"

Dan turns his back to him, hoping Nate will finally let him sleep. He doesn't.

"Well, dude, be careful"

"Careful of what?" Dan mutters in the plaid that lays there.

"I don't know. Blair is a pretty girl. And she is also your ex's best friend"

Again, Dan doesn't get it right away. When he does, he falls off the couch laughing.

_Wednesday_

"Nate, I'm bored" Blair pouts into her phone.

"What should I do about that?" he asks with a smile in his voice.

He sounds like he is high. Blair glances at the clock, it's only eleven in the morning. She sighs.

"Come over and distract me"

Nate makes a noise into the phone, like he is stretching.

"No can do, sorry" he finally says "I have a date"

"Shooting in a ball with Humphrey isn't a date" Blair rolls her eyes "You should buy him dinner, God knows when was the last time he ate something that could be considered food"

Nate laughs "A real date"

"In the middle of the day?" Blair asks, suspicious.

Nate leaves a suggestive silence hanging. Blair grimaces.

"In the middle of the day?" she asks again, grossed out.

"There's always time for pleasure"

"Yuck"

She hangs up, walks down to her kitchen, finds nothing to do. She is about to call Nate back, blackmail him with his strange love of Julie Andrews like she always does, when he walks into her foyer, Italian take out in one hand and _The Sound of Music_ in the other.

They settle on her bed after they've eaten.

"I'm warning you, this is naptime for me" Nate tells her, getting under the cover.

"Please, like you'll be able to close your eyes on Julie"

The movie's been rolling for half an hour when Blair hears him snore slightly. He looks so pretty, all she can do is stop the movie and snuggle under the cover against him. Nate's arm moves in his sleep to wrap loosely around her.

He still smells the same, Blair can't help notice.

_Thursday_

When Dan gets to their usual spot in Central Park, Nate can see he doesn't expect to see Blair lying on a plaid in the grass, reading a magazine.

"What's going on?" Dan asks, staring at Blair.

She doesn't even look up. Nate waves nonchalantly toward her, like he is magically erasing her presence.

"She wanted to go for a walk, and I told her I already had plans with you, so obviously…but she won't be addressing you, so it's really like she's not there"

Dan shoots him and look, and Nate doesn't believe what he just said either. But Blair turns out to be quiet enough to let them play for a while. Then, obviously, she gets thirsty and _there is smoothie cart over there, go get me one, mango and lime, no sugar._

Dan looks like he is about to reply something, but Nate hits softly his arm, shaking his head. It was time for a break, anyway.

They come back with her order that she ends up not liking. She gives her cup back to Nate to steal and taste his only to give it back. Dan doesn't have time to step away before Blair's hand snatches his smoothie.

"Mmm" she smiles around the straw "Strawberry and Banana, a classic. Thanks, Humphrey"

Nate tries really hard not to laugh at Dan's face, and gives Blair a reprimanding look.

She hates banana.

_Friday_

"That was dreadful"

Blair's head turns sharp, so she can attempt to light Dan on fire with her eyes.

"Dreadful? That was a masterpiece, Humphrey" she picks up her jacket, and the empty box of macaroons.

"A dreadful masterpiece" Dan yawns a little.

Blair wants to slap him.

She makes her way out of the showing room swiftly, not wanting to be contaminated or something by his ignorance. Dan laughs.

"What are you doing tomorrow?" he asks, following her.

"Something that is none of your business, surely"

She is planning on tricking Nate to come to the spa with her.

"Alright" Dan opens the exit door of the theater for her "But in case you want to make it my business, there is a reading of a poetess at The Morgan. I think you'll like it"

"And what gives you the authority to assert such a thing?" she asks while hailing for a cab.

Dan chuckles "I feel like I finally got what you're about, back in there" he says, nodding toward the theater as a cab stops for her a few feet from them. "You like that kind of things. You're the weeping in front of _Nights of Cabiria _type"

Blair turns to him again, and regrets it since he can clearly see her annoyance to his spot on theory about her.

"Don't act like you know me, Humphrey" she snaps, and resumes walking.

Dan catches up with her and opens the car door for her.

"It's not a bad type" he says.

_Saturday_

Dan is surprised to see Blair came to the reading, not so surprised to see she brought Nate along. He looks bored out of his mind, and they have to leave fifteen minutes after the start, because he keeps whining about wanting to have fun.

His idea of fun is going back to Blair's with a pizza and watch _Once Upon a Time in the West._

Blair is reluctant to all of that –Dan in her apartment, the pizza and the western. Nate convinces her with a smile and a promise –empty promise, Dan knows it –of accompany her shopping _one of these days_.

Blair makes him sign a written agreement.

Before the pizza arrives, Nate extracts his stash out of his pocket and rolls a joint. Blair turns up her nose when Dan passes it to her.

"I'm not in high school anymore" she waves the smokes away "Besides, I'm not putting my mouth on something you put _yours_ on"

"What about that smoothie you stole from me?" Dan lifts his eyebrows, finally getting his revenge.

Blair opens her mouth, but to say nothing.

_Sunday_.

Dan wakes up on the floor of Blair's bedroom. He rolls around, sore, and finds Nate stretching uncomfortably on the little ottoman. He rolls some more and sees Blair watching the two of them from her bed, sleep mask on her forehead.

"I'm hungry" she mutters.

So Dan brings them to family brunch.

_Monday._

Nate has the bad sense to tell Blair that Dan is visiting his mother for the day, so she takes it as an opportunity to make him honor his agreement.

He follows her to every shop numbly, and sits on the couch waiting for her to come and parade with a new skirt, or blouse, or dress.

When she threatens to make him do it all over again the following week if he doesn't at least pretend to be interested, he stands up and walks to a stand.

"Those pants would look good on you"

"Don't you know anything about me?" Blair rolls her eyes when she hears the word _pants._

She inspects another skirt, doesn't feel Nate approach her from behind until his hand settles on the small of her back.

"I know enough to know they would look good on you" he whispers.

Blair shivers in spite of herself, and she _can feel_ him smile at her back.

She makes him carry the bag to her place, up to her bedroom. There, Nate sits again on the ottoman, self-designated spot, and shrugs off his jacket before taking out an old joint. Blair kicks off her heels, and sits next to him.

"Why did you come back to New York, instead of joining Serena in Mexico?"

Blair doesn't deny to herself that she is expecting a certain kind of answer to that question. She just hopes Nate will be his usual self and not notice anything.

He shrugs and smokes "I don't know. Why not come back to New York? New York is good." He smiles at her "New York has you"

Blair presses her lips, not giving into his flirty tone.

"You're in love with her" she says, almost a whisper.

Nate's smile falters only slightly. He shrugs again.

"And yet, I still prefer you"

_Tuesday_

Dan welcomes them to the loft with homemade sushi and whisky. Nate makes his way in holding a full bag of weed with a smile, and Blair has a small pout on her lips.

"I see you came with nothing but your sassiness" Dan tells her.

She gives him a fake smile.

Dan pours the whisky into three shot glasses, that he serves them at the kitchen bar.

"What are we watching tonight?" he asks.

Nate drinks his shot and points at Blair. She smiles, taking a DVD out of her purse.

"I'm going to teach you what a real western is. _Il buono, Il brutto, Il cattivo"_

"Bless you" Nate tells her.

Dan nods appreciatively, ignoring Nate. He lifts his shot toward Blair with a smile, before drinking it.

Blair smokes, that night. Nate keeps pressuring her, telling her it'll be fun, and Dan makes fun of her put-together snobbish attitude; so she smokes.

She is sitting between the two of them with an unexplainable smile on her face, and gets into a fit o laughter so wild that the boys have to stop the movie.

"What is it? Tell us?" they keep asking, smiling at her, wanting to laugh too.

It takes Blair a time to recover.

"It's stupid" she shakes her head, and chuckles some more.

"Well, you're high, so it's either ingenuous, either dumb" Dan nudges her "Come on, Waldorf, spread the joy"

"Fine" she puts her hands in the air, doesn't know why "I was thinking…it's us. The Good, the Bad and the Ugly" she points at the computer screen "Nate is _The Good, _I'm _The Bad, _and…"

She turns to Dan, biting her smile. He looks back at her with a grin, waiting, not making the connections.

Nate giggles "You're the ugly, man"

Blair bursts into laughter again, and Nate joins her. Dan wants to be vexed, but he can't stop smiling.

"Stop laughing" he laughs "This isn't funny"

But for some reason, it really is.

_Wednesday_

Blair's head is quite heavy when she opens her eyes, even more when she sits up abruptly, not recognizing her room. This isn't her bed, those aren't her sheets, those aren't her books and _Oh, God_ she is in Humphrey's bed.

Good news is, she is alone and it looks like she has been all night.

She doesn't see her shoes anywhere, so it takes a lot of mental prep to settle her bare feet on the floor of a Brooklyn loft. This is the kind of things she is happy can't end up on Gossip Girl.

Nate and Dan are sitting at the kitchen bar with a cup of coffee, murmuring and laughing. She clears her throat.

"Good morning, Princess" Dan smiles. "Would you enjoy some coffee?"

"Not in Brooklyn, no" Blair crosses her arms, and stares at them, wary "What did you do to me?"

"You were too high to get home" Nate says, giving up his seat for her "And I was too high to take you home, so we put you down in Dan's room"

Blair takes a seat, and the mug of fresh coffee Dan gives her.

"Alone, right?" she asks.

Dan laughs "God, yes. I took my father's old room, and Nate slept on the couch"

They both have this grin on their faces which make her suspicious.

"Fine" she says, sipping on the coffee, not letting her guard down. "What are we doing today?"

She definitely doesn't like the look the boys exchange, and she is right not to.

Because they trick her into watching _Die Hard._

_Thursday._

Nate is already falling asleep on the couch.

Dan had suggested they watched _The Night of The Hunter._ Nate had complained that they watched too much black and white movies, but winded up loving it. Blair had never seen it, and the weed had magnified the suspense to a level she could barely sustain. She had sunk in the couch, wrapped the plaid around her and pressed against the boy, breath short.

When the credits started rolling, Nate closed his eyes, congratulating Dan on the choice with a mumble. Dan took back the extinct joint they had left there, and lit it back up.

He and Blair smoke in silence, with only the light of the joint and the moon out in the sky to allow them to see anything. When the joint is finished, she turns to him with a high smile.

"That was a good movie, Humphrey"

He turns too, and looks at her, trying to place her face into the darkness. He can only see her eyes. Big, glassy, almost twinkling. Almost beautiful. He nods.

"A French review called it the second most beautiful movie of all time" he says quietly.

Blair's eyes widen for a second.

"What was the first one?" she asks, interested.

Definitely beautiful.

"I can't remember" Dan answers.

A impulse makes him lean down and kiss her. It's probably a lack of impulse that makes her let him. It lasts only a few seconds, but long enough to make Dan thinks things; things he would have never thought of thinking before. Things like how her lips feel nice, so little and soft, so precious under his; things like how nice she smells, and how pretty her spirit can be sometimes.

They pull apart naturally. Blair doesn't know where to put herself. She turns her head, and sees Nate opened his eyes, and is staring at the black screen.

_Friday_

Nate doesn't give signs of life all day, and Dan is the only one asking for it anyway. He fumbles around the penthouse, looks through Chuck's black book he finds in his room. He chooses randomly. Venetia would do just fine.

When she leaves at the end of the afternoon, Dan arrives with a pack of beers. Nate welcomes him, more chipper than he would have been before Venetia.

After the second beer, Dan stops pretending there is only soccer on his mind.

"You're not upset about what happened yesterday, are you?"

Nate plays dumb, because he doesn't know how to answer that. Dan takes another sip.

"When Blair and I…because it didn't mean anything. We were just really high"

Nate retains a laugh, remembers when he used to give the same excuse. _I don't like her, _he would say to Blair about Serena, after having hugged her too long or smiled too wide, _I was just high that's all._

"Nah, man" he shakes his head "Why would I be upset. I did warn you, though"

"I know" Dan nods, relieved and tense at the same time "It's just…when we were together, the three of us, I noticed…" he trails off and takes a deep breath "You're not falling in love again with her, are you?"

"No, Dan" Nate sighs "I'm not falling in love with Blair again"

Dan nods a second time. Nate opens another beer.

"It would have required falling out of love in the first place"

He doesn't know why he said it, but now it's out there. He looks at Dan, who stares thoughtfully at the floor before nodding a third time. It's not the first time they've understood each other without saying anything.

X

_Saturday_

Nate calls Blair, tells her to join them at the loft.

They don't watch anything that night, just sit on Dan's bed with the lights turned off, and a sheet over their heads and Nate attempts to tell a scary story.

"And that's when they realized, the sound they had been hearing all along, was a clock ticking"

Blair and Dan blink.

"That was a ridiculous story" Blair says

Dan nods "Terrible"

"Despicably unoriginal"

Nate laughs, too high to care "Alright fine. Why don't you tell a scary story, Blair? Let's see how that works out"

"I don't know any" she shrugs.

Dan passes Nate the joint "You've never been scared?"

Blair wants to answer that she never gets scared, but Nate takes her head between his hands, bringing her closer to his. He's put the joint backward in his mouth, and exhales so hard that all Blair can do is inhale. She feels dizzy when they stop.

"Story, now" Nate tells her, finishing the joint.

Blair swallows, she is thirsty.

"When I was little, once I thought my parents had abandoned me in New York to go live in France" she says "We were going to go on holidays there, and I don't remember why, but I thought they had left without me"

She takes the cover off their heads, and the smoke they've been accumulating under it evaporates in the darkness of the room.

"I should've known they would wait for me to get older to do so"

She hates herself for getting so teenage-angsty, even more when Dan and Nate pull her toward them, into their arms.

"Ugh, no" she tries to break free, but they're too strong "I don't want your pity"

"You'll get it anyway" Dan says, stroking her back "Enjoy, Waldorf"

Blair wakes up in Dan's bed just an hour later, facing Nate. Her ankle is linked with his, so she turns her head to check if it's indeed Humphrey's arm that's on her hip.

It feels strange. Strange, but nice.

_Sunday_

Serena comes back to New York, and Blair suspects it's the end of whatever she had going on with The Good and The Ugly. She has the confirmation when she asks them what they're doing that night, and they both tell her they're busy. Serena probably suggested a fun night out, where she would flash her eyelashes, her tanned skin and tell her crazy vacation stories, leaving out how many guys she fucked over there.

Blair really wants to refuse the invitation when Serena suggests they spend the day at the spa together. She whines to Nate, asks him to find her a way out of it but he tells her she might as well go, because he has work to do.

At the spa, Serena talks and talks and talks, and none of it is relaxing. Then, she finally remembers Blair also has a life.

"What about you? Did you get around that reading list?" she asks.

Blair shrugs "More or less"

Not at all.

When she leaves the spa, she has a missed call from Humphrey. She looks at Serena who is also checking her phone. She looks disappointed.

"What do you want to do, now?" she asks Blair.

"I have to finish writing a paper, sorry. Lunch tomorrow?"

Serena's smile falls "Sure. I have to spend some time with my mom, anyway. Nate and Dan told me they were both busy"

Blair shrugs in compassion, even though she isn't really sorry, and hugs Serena before getting into a cab.

She calls Dan back "What do you want?"

"Where are you right now?" Dan asks urgently.

"On my way home, why?"

"Come over, it's important"

Blair considers telling him off, as a payback for abandoning her on her last day of break, but she sighs and gives the driver the address to his place.

Dan opens the door with a smile. He is wearing a jacket and seems like he is on his way out.

"Good" he says "Come on, we don't have much time left"

"Much time left for what?" Blair asks, offended that he doesn't even invite her in. Dan takes two travelling bag from the kitchen counter. One of them is Louis Vuitton, that Blair recognizes.

"That's mine!" she exclaims "What are you doing with that?"

Dan gets out of the loft and locks up the door.

"Nate is waiting for us downstairs" is his answer.

He takes Blair by one hand, the two bags in the other and leads her down the stairs. Blair can't ask anything, too focused on not tripping on the stairs.

True to Humphrey's words, Nate is waiting in a town car downstairs.

"Come on, move it" he tells them.

"Stop!" Blair actually shouts "What is happening?"

Nothing stops, Nate pulls her in the car and Dan gets in next to her.

"We're taking you to Paris" Nate gives sign to the driver to go.

"You're taking me –you're –what?" Blair's head keeps turning from left to right to look at them.

"It'll be fun, you see" Nate tells her "We'll be back by Wednesday, you won't miss a lot of classes"

"I can't…I can't go to _Paris_!"

"Why not?" Dan asks "What's keeping you here?"

Blair shrugs, makes fish sounds with her mouth, and the boys make fun of her. She stares at them, wondering if they're high, or if she is simply going crazy. It doesn't seem to be either.

They're just taking her to Paris.

_Monday_.

There is something, about the Eiffel Tower being the first thing you see when you wake up. Blair doesn't think it'll ever get tiring.

She fell asleep as soon as they reached the suite, drunk from all the champagne they drank on the plane.

Now, she is fully awake, sober, but high on content. She is in Paris. With Nate. Something that she kept dreaming of when she was a girl. And with Humphrey. Something she would have never dreamed of, ever.

She gets out of her bedroom. Dan and Nate are already sitting on the veranda with coffee and a joint. Blair faintly remembers Nate sliding a hundred at a custom agent at the private airport, and figures it was for the weed.

They smile at her, but she grimaces at the joint.

"Isn't a bit early?" she asks.

"There's always time for pleasure" Nate grins, while Dan pours her coffee.

She sits with them.

"You two know we're watching _Breakfast at Tiffany's _today, right?" she asks.

They both answer with a groan. It's Blair's turn to smile. Over her cup, she watches Nate smoke, looking at the blue skies and she watches Dan drink his coffee, eyes on Tolstoy words. There is something there, she realizes, something undefinable. Something that might turn out complicated, or not at all.

She figures only time will tell.

* * *

_Hope you liked it. I would really like some feedback for this one, because it's the first time I've ever written anything like it._

_Love you guys! xo_


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